I have a taste for Invincibility
by Kuro49
Summary: Pre-Cuba. Erik/Charles. Erik resists him every step of the way, but Charles is not virtuous by far and bites back just as hard.


Before the divorce, so Charles has minimal to no respect for privacy (subjective though if you really want to think about it) and Erik is just going with the flow of the Shaw-escape, the mutant road trip and coming home to Westchester. I don't own. :D

XXX

**I have a taste for Invincibility (and it tastes like you)**

XXX

He looks like a bad catch.

The wounded animal bleeding out on the ground of the woods with a certain silent defiance that never saves anyone. But, and just maybe, this time it'll be different. And that is the only reason Charles doesn't physically restrain the other, but it is close.

With the way Erik is eyeing the men with the badges dotting their belts, he is surprised the CIA hasn't tackled him to the deck of the boat by now. Or maybe they are learning. (He doesn't let his hopes up though.)

Charles places himself on standby and clutches the blanket even closer to his shivering body, waiting and watching with unblinking eyes as Raven tucks herself below his chin, lips still frowning with disapproval for all his recklessness.

"Don't do that again." Her skin is warm where she presses her cheek against his neck and her voice is soft, he almost loses it to the coastal winds.

"It was just—" He doesn't quite know how to explain it but the man standing by the rails will change his life. Even though he looks as though he is still contemplating whether jumping back in will make this any worst, there is no doubt in Charles' conviction. He leans down, pushes a light kiss to Raven's forehead and says. "His mind. It pulled me in."

And that is both the easiest and the most complicated way he can explain the reason he jumped.

And it is only because of Charles (as well as a hint of his parlour tricks) that they don't throw the man into a holding cell, useless metal handcuffs and all when they arrive back on US soil. Because Division X is CIA as far as the government is concerned and nothing short of powered individuals will ever change the fact that America is built upon a foundation of hit 'em hard and fast before they know its coming and ask all the questions later when everything turns into that canary in the cage.

Erik Lehnsherr is out of his wetsuit by the time Charles comes by to the room they have him confined in. The two men standing guard make their leave when Charles gives them a smile, brushes his bangs aside with two fingers and tilts his head just so.

They turn the corner and Charles gives a knock at the door, voice echoing a little louder in the empty hall. "It seems they left without giving me the key." The smile is evident in his voice and whether it is the change in his pocket or the lack of gun-shaped metal hanging from his hip, they both knows it's him.

When the door opens for him, it opens without finesse or any unnecessary flair, just an ominous creak and a practical slit before Charles pushes the rest of the way in. And instead of the lion's den Division X is convinced they have, the room is lit up with the same florescent white as any other and the man is sitting on the bed at the far end of the room.

"Hello Erik."

The man glances up from staring at the floors, he almost pulls a taunting sneer at the charming greeting Charles is trying to get across.

"It's you." He huffs out a near silent snort.

"Charles." He corrects and doesn't make his way further into the room, not even when Erik, born Max Eisenhardt, rakes his eyes down his body, assessing of whether he can take him down in a quick tumble of hand-to-hand combat.

The churning of the mind pulls him further in but Charles doesn't take another step.

He doesn't initiate, he waits.

"Are they sending you to interrogate me?"

And the conclusion Erik has come to is that: he can't take him down, bare hands and all. He may get a couple of punches in, but no, not when he is a telepath. Charles smiles.

"I hardly think a genetics professor can give them what they want."

"So what do they have in mind for me?"

He sees flashes of the past, where a young German boy is pushed to his limits. Blood is spilled, ink is etched onto the white of the skin, and the metal groans out in grief.

"I haven't got the slightest clue." Charles admits.

_But it is nothing like you imagine it to be._

"Then this is a waste of my time." Erik makes to stand up but Charles makes a low hum of agreement, knowing Erik will take it for what it isn't.

"You know I can walk out of here anytime I want."

"Of course." Charles leans against the frame of the door. "But you won't."

"You can't stop me."

"I probably can." Charles shrugs his shoulders and there is no arrogance. "But why bother, you don't plan to bring the roof down over my head and you have nothing I want."

Erik narrows his eyes. "Don't tempt me."

It is a challenge and a threat, and for a telepath that has seen everything this man has to offer, he knows Erik is always true to his word. This warning is the last he'll get.

"I know what I can and cannot do." This is something he is willing to take to the grave and Charles doesn't quite know what he is offering in return but it is something. "They throw you in a plastic box and then, what'd you do?"

000

"Pull over."

Erik glances over to Charles, who has his bangs in his face and looking a few shades too pale even for his usual complexion. "Why?"

"I might vomit on you otherwise." The blue eyes peek at him from behind dark curls and that might just be a glare but Erik holds his tongue and pulls off of the empty stretch of interstate highway. "…Lovely."

The wheels spray gravel into the low standing trees that line the route and Charles stumbles out of the car with a fumble of the lock.

He pukes off the side of the road, right by the trees and Erik would almost feel guilty if he is less of a whatever Charles has him pinned for and he _knows_ the telepath has him tacked up on a mental bulletin, an analytical collage he can bring forth to the front of his mind whenever he pleases.

He doesn't know how he should feel about that but he isn't as disgusted as he should be.

Erik quietly turns off the engine, steps out and into the bright afternoon sun that blazes above their heads, recalling Charles' night of drinking on an empty stomach and being waken up four hours too early to catch up on the miles they lost the day before.

Leaning against the government issued car, he watches, and it might even pass off as observing if Charles isn't a telepath, but he is and Erik is simply staring at the other man's backside as he pukes his guts into the green. The sound is wretch but it isn't like Erik hasn't seen worst.

When Charles staggers back from the abused bushes, he doesn't get back in the car. Instead, he puts his back against door and slides down the side of the car until he is crouched on the ground, dark brown locks lying plastered against his head with cold sweat as he catches his breath.

"What an elegant English boy you make."

He calls before he slams his door shut to walk around the car's rear end to reach the telepath.

Erik's lips are pulled into what can pass off as a grin or a smirk or even a smile if Charles squints his eyes hard enough against the sun behind Erik's head.

He doesn't ask whether he is okay and Charles is grateful. Even more so when Erik presses a bottle of water against his forehead, it is not particularly pleasant because the water is sun-warmed but the worst has passed.

"You don't know the rest of it." Charles mutters as he takes it from his hands and rinses the taste of vomit from his mouth. Spitting a mouthful to the ground before he drinks deeply, water leaking from the corner of his hungry lips to glide down his chin and jaw.

"Now I want to."

Charles pulls the bottle from his lips with a wet pop and wipes his mouth with the back of his hand. "No, I don't think you do." He sounds convicted, like someone has tried before and never really dealt well with what they found in the end.

He isn't a man to make the same mistake twice. And Erik can tell he doesn't want him to be the one to break that rule.

"You tell me, Charles." Erik crouches down to him, eyes narrowing into slits as he leans in and it is both unnerving and lovely but Charles doesn't get a say in this, his perceptions has always been skewed. "Didn't you say you know everything?"

"Oh, I do." Charles takes another drink from the bottle and this is both the anticipated move and the unexpected from days before, when Charles stares too long and Erik thinks, just a little too relentlessly on the other.

When Charles pushes himself off the side of the car, he barrows straight into an unsuspecting Erik, propelling the two of them to the ground. He has him on his back at the side of the road, dirt smearing where they don't touch. And when Charles kisses Erik's mouth open with lips and teeth, that shared gulp of water slicks up their sharp tongues, smoothing down their cruel brand of banter into something more accommodating.

It isn't much.

But Erik's blue-green-gray eyes are still open, not with shock but a whole other spectrum of emotions Charles doesn't care to interpret now and Charles' telepathy is still the same ruthless sort of loud.

_And I know you want me._

000

The Westchester Mansion stands looming.

It reminds him of the dead that doesn't deal well with being buried and he walks along the hallways like he is expecting to catch a glimpse of their ghosts still standing where they once stood. The stairs are the worst even when the red of his mother's dress no longer exists in this realm of reality.

Raven doesn't say anything, she only looks at him, long and hard when he first proposes the idea to the group. Maybe she believes this time it'll be different.

He wants to believe her but when he walks into his old childhood room, nothing has changed. He sees books he used to love and worn trinkets he can't quite remember the origin of. He wants to think this place once held happy memories.

But when a shadow looms over him, he still can't move.

(Expecting a beating that never comes, recalling the bruises that never bloom.)

"It's what I said, is it not?"

His shoulders can't stop shaking. This isn't then, he isn't him, Charles _knows_ that. He just can't seem to stop the intricate knitting of past and present, past and future. He swallows the lump in his throat, and asks, voice not one bit shaky but maybe he is also subtracting the tremors from Erik's mind. "…Whatever are you talking about?"

He can't be sure.

"Raven slapped me."

"Oh," he wants to yell at Raven, or Erik. He also wants to cry, or maybe laugh. Instead, he settles for turning around to face the other man and it isn't serious but neither is he smiling. "Then yes."

Erik looks a little like he wants to apologize but Charles is the king of ignorance and he wants his title back.

"It's nothing like yours though." Charles smiles, briefly as he supplies. "Just minor bruises and a bunch of uncensored thoughts at the peak of my puberty."

"That doesn't make me feel better."

Charles raises an eyebrow, curious because Erik has never cared enough for this degree of concern, not even when it has just been the two of them, let loose on the mutants of America. It brings a smile to his lips.

"Teach the boy how to write and he'll hand you a novel in time for dinner."

He thinks it might be his father.

"Is that some sort of English logic?"

Or Kurt when he has still been trying to court his mother with flowers and sweet praises that extended to her son.

"Hm, no, not at all. It's just," Charles furrows his brows and repeats himself, "it's just that children learn quick, or something to that effect."

He doesn't know what possesses him, but he is glad it did.

000

"I hate this place."

He is naked beneath the sheets and they aren't in love but it's close enough. Charles stares up at the ceiling, back flat against the mattress of his childhood bed. The books are still right where he left them and he is glad he gets to have Erik when the memories are at its worst.

Charles moans extra loud into the pillow and makes sure the bedsprings feel the strain.

He doesn't want this room to forget what that boy has grown into and maybe this is revenge but he doesn't plan to air out the room. Erik calls him kinky when he finally shares his plans in between a haze of half-formed pleasure and pooling heat. He doesn't actually know how much he gets through to Erik, or whether how much of it is through telepathy or words either.

But Erik doesn't say anything else, just bites another nasty bruise into the cluster of freckles over the span of his shoulder just as he grinds back against the heat. Fingers grab at the sheets in purchase, a soft pant escapes his parted lips and he wishes those ghosts could see him now.

"We all have something special like that." _A place we hate with everything we have left._

Erik sits up from the bed and watches as the telepath roll on to his stomach. They don't exactly intertwine their fingers in affection or brush stray locks from each other's eyes. Instead they talk about their demons to the best of their abilities and call that something special.

Charles' shoulder is bruised along the flesh and the color is a fascinating purple-red.

"Where's yours?"

He thinks about a black iron gate. A mass grave and a list of names all scratched out except for one.

"…It doesn't exist anymore."

He drags Erik down by the neck and sucks another kiss from his lips. It is not gentle, they don't need kindness, they only need this feeling of invincibility while the world intends to crash around them. And when he smiles into the pressure, he holds on just a bit tighter, and it is only because they both know it to be a lie.

"I'm glad."

XXX Kuro

This one is quickly starting to become my favorite out of all. And did I ever mention how much I hate ff.n's _need_ to cut out my blank line breaks?


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